Lorelei and the Laser Eyes broke my brain, then built it back up
Several puzzles in Lorelei and the Laser Eyesmade me wonder: What sort of sickos does it take to create this kind of game? The answer is the developers at Simogo, the Swedish studio known for pop rhythm game Sayonara Wild Hearts and puzzle games Device 6 and SPL-T. This new Simogo game pulls together different realities, layers of logic puzzles, math, and a distinct, undeniable ambiance. Everything is a puzzle in Lorelei and the Laser Eyes — even the story itself — and nothing is exactly as it seems.
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes begins with the player character Lorelei arriving at an old mansion-turned-hotel deep in an Italian forest. There she meets an absolute weirdo who wouldn’t be out of place in shows like Twin Peaks or The X-Files. The puzzles begin as soon as she arrives; there’s very little actual instruction, but hints everywhere. It’s not entirely clear why you’re there or what you’re supposed to do, but there are a lot of locked doors and mysterious document tubes, and that seems like a good place to start. The document tubes lay out a map of the mansion, and you know what doors do. As you open new doors and discover new things, some sort of picture will start to take shape. You may not yet learn what’s going on, but you’ll know what you have to do to move forward.
Simogo previously said there were more than 150 puzzles spread across the environment in Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, and you can feel that depth. So many of the puzzles build off one another, letting the player learn the logic in play before pushing that logic into a new place. The answers are everywhere: in the environment itself, or in dozens of papers, books, and scripts you’ll pick up and read. There are word problems, math problems, shape puzzles, visualization exercises, and video game mazes. Some things you’ll see won’t make any sense at all — say, a lady with glowing eyes comatose in a bed — until the very moment it clicks, be it due to something you heard over the airwaves or a note
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